USC Climbing the Rankings
6 August 2005
As the costs associated with education increase more people
understandably become interested in obtaining comparative data
about rankings, league tables, staff qualifications, entry
standards and course costs.
In the press for simplicity many relevant facts that relate to
interpreting the data are ignored, and eventually we end up
comparing apples with oranges and concluding that apples are
best.
In one recent publication the country's thirty-seven public and
two private universities were again directly compared.
Not surprisingly, given their age, facilities, supporters and
scale, the usual suspects occupied the top research categories.
Equally unsurprising, those universities that have, over
decades, been able to generate professional courses, often from
histories as colleges, have good graduate employment rates.
Hardly very intellectual to imagine it could be otherwise, yet
some commentators imagine this is startling or disturbing.
What really matters for USC is whether we are continuing to make
progress, whether there is evidence of our climbing the rankings,
and whether there is potential for further growth and development.
On all counts the response has to be unequivocally positive.
Let me deal with a few of the relevant factors that put these
rankings into context.
In the early 1990s most of our talented youth left the Coast to
go to university, and most were lost to the Coast on graduation.
USC has retained an annually increasing amount of that talent. Many
high schools' data already indicate USC as the University of first
choice for an increasing proportion of school leavers. The
University is making a major difference.
Many of our students are mature (over 25), cannot study in
Brisbane, and are not included in 'Guide' data. Yet many are
already employed or enhance employment prospects on graduation for
USC.
To provide further employment opportunities for graduates, no
other university in this country exceeds the efforts made by USC to
engage with business to provide work placement opportunities for
undergraduates.
Even more significantly no other university has embarked on so
whole-of-institution a scale to influence the generation of jobs in
the new economy through an Incubator, Accelerator and technology
park program.
Paralleling these major developments we are also increasing the
range of professional courses with high graduate take-up rates,
which for a variety of reasons we have been unable to offer
previously.
The huge hospitals complex next to the University will bring
with it more jobs in health and medical sciences and further
contribute not only to economic restructuring but to graduate
employment prospects.
We are already achieving the highest rankings for students'
educational experience, when some of our fiercest competitors are
in the bottom rankings.
Further, one of the signal features of a great university
education has to be with staff with the highest credentials. Again,
we have laid the right foundations because we are in the highest
category, along with company like the Australian National
University. That speaks volumes for our potential.
I do hope that students will see the rankings data as a guide,
especially for school leavers. Try to compare like with like, and
avoid the superficial comparisons that neglect context and history,
because prospective students can otherwise be thoroughly misled and
become preoccupied by factors that may prove irrelevant to their
eventual aspirations.
Professor Paul Thomas is Vice-Chancellor of University of
the Sunshine Coast